A better way to have a dinner party

The last time I had people over for dinner was Shavuot --- I made Blintzes. I started gathering ingredients at roughly 1pm and ended my cleanup a little after 11pm. During the 10 hours in between I was pretty much working the whole time.

Even for me, 10 hours in the kitchen is just too much time. That is why I was very happy when a college friend of mine emailed me a few weeks ago with the idea of jointly having people over at her apartment.

So, yesterday my friend and I met up at the Wholefoods at 6pm to get our ingredients. The plan for dinner was to have salmon as the main dish. Seeing the price of salmon at Wholefoods, however, I started to wonder if, perhaps, another type of fish might be a better choice. At between 13 and 16 a lb, salmon was just too much. We did not give up on salmon though, as we still had a secret weapon --- Chinatown. After purchasing the rest of our ingredients we walk down Mott street (near my friend's place) and looked at the fish markets. There were some salmon steaks (we wanted fillets though) and then there were some really gross looking cuts of salmon with the bone in it. We asked one of the mongers if we could buy 3 lbs of salmon fillet --- he responded that we could buy a side of salmon which would be seven pounds!

Finally, we wandered into an indoor market which was nice and clean, and actually had some really nice looking salmon fillets. We settled on a little over 3 lbs of the fish and returned back to my friend's apartment.

Since I'm on the subject of Chinatown fish markets, its worth mentioning some of the weirder things you see there. At one of the outdoor markets there was a gigantic barrel of live frogs hopping around. Then, inside of the indoor market, there was a large display of alligator's legs. I'm sure if I had look a little more I would have seen some other oddities as well.

Back to the dinner -- we got to my friend's place at about 7:30. Dinner was set for 9 so I delayed cooking the fish for some time (knowing also that people would be late). The menu was as follows:
~Oven cooked salmon covered with chopped dill, honey, mustard, ginger, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice, olive oil and some salt / pepper. To go along with this was a sour cream based sauce with dill, mustard, honey, lemon juice, curry powder and paprika.
~Over roasted potato chunks, tossed before cooking with olive oil, rosemary, paprika, a little curry powder and some pepper (salted after cooking).
~Fresh spinach salad with chopped red pepper, carrot, strawberry, craisin, almond slivers, and some balsamic vinegar.
~Cooked string beans with ginger, garlic, almond slivers, honey, curry powder and balsamic vinegar (I've posted on this before).
~Fruit salad desert.

I need to admit that the inspiration for the fish and for the salad recipes was from one of my aunts. During holidays when my family congregates in Springfield Mass, we often have lunches at my aunt's and we have wonderful dairy/fish dishes there. The salmon and salad both are very similar to things which we often have there. I'm sure that the recipes which I have eaten there will continue to influence much of my cooking.

The food turned out well, and the time of it was just right. People came a little late, and the fish finished just as they were coming. We moved everything up to the roof of the apartment building, where there was a beautiful table and a bunch of chairs (most of which were dry). The lighting was a little tricky, but we managed to use to lanterns to cast just enough light to see what you were eating. I was happy with the way the food tasted. The salmon was cooked well, but not dry (in fact it was quiet juicy) and the sauce went well with it. A friend of mine mistakenly thought the sauce for the salmon was a dressing for the salad, causing her some confusion and discomfort (I don't think the mix of spinach salad and sour cream sauce is all that good). The potatoes had a nice skin and the rosemary had infused them with a nice flavor. In all I was happy about the outcome of the food.

And the best part of the whole night was that when everything was done and people were ready to leave, I was able to leave too! Having done the cooking I was spared the work of clean up. All of the good and fun of cooking, and none of the wrinkled hands of washing dishes and cleaning up. This is definitely the way to do dinner parties.

Middle Eastern party

Two days ago (friday) I went to a dinner shindig at my friends' apartment in the upper west side. The theme was middle eastern. My contribution was an eggplant dip (more later about this). The meal was very yummy. We started out with some bread / cut pita and my eggplant dip, as well as a hummus dip which the hosts made (http://www.recipezaar.com/green-herb-hummus-359660). There was also a large chunk of cheese and some really yummy turkish bread a friend brought.
The meal was very well balance --- there was a super yummy Israeli cous cous boiled up with a cinnamon stick for flavor, and then tossed with roasted butternut squash, browned onions, chopped greens, and some nuts and dried fruits (cranberries and raisins). I'd need to say that the cous cous was my favorite dish at the dinner simply because it had really interesting flavors, plus the squash and onions made it a little more substantial than is usual for cous cous. See (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Israeli-Couscous-with-Roasted-Butternut-Squash-and-Preserved-Lemon-102250) for the recipe.
The other main dish at the dinner was homemade falafel. The host sent me a link to the recipe he used (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/My-Favorite-Falafel-231755), though he substituted canned for dried chickpeas. These falafel tasted really good --- I think that the red pepper gave them a nice kick, plus the herbs in them did a nice job cutting down on any oily taste. I think it would be worth trying it with the dried and then soaked chickpeas, and also aiming for a less pureed and more grainy consistency pre-frying. Still, the falafel were packed with flavor and went really well with all of the different sauces which were made to accompany them.
As far as the sauces are concerned, there was a traditional tahini, a tzadziki sauce, a hot pepper sauce and a mint chutney (slightly less traditional this was originally intended for some lamb which was eventually deleted from the menu --- thus leaving everything on the menu eatable for me).
To accompany all of this was a nice spinach, goat cheese, and pine nut salad.

Now, my one contribution was this eggplant dip. I had a lot of fun making it, since it was the first time I really ever successfully used an eggplant. That said, it was my second time trying. My first time was at a BBQ with some NYU friends about two months ago. Someone brought an eggplant, and everyone thought I would know what to do with it. I had no clue, but I pretended to know, so I chopped it into a some slices and threw it on the grill with some salt and pepper. This did not work so well and I eventually denied all connections with the alleged eggplant.

Well, this time I consulted the collective knowledge base of the peoples of this fair planet and the internet told me I should roast it over my stoves gas flame. I actually had two eggplants, so I lined two burners with foil and using some long tongs, I placed both of the eggplants on top of the flames. At first nothing seemed to be happening, but eventually the skin began to peel and the eggplant got softer. Every few minutes I turned them some so that eventually all of the skin was peeling and charred. I'd say I spent about 15 minutes roasting, though they could have even stood for a little more time (the inside of the bigger one was not entirely soft). It was good that I used some foil, though still there was plenty of clean up to do on my stove top from the liquid which had seeped out of the eggplant.

From the fire to a bowl for about 10 minutes went the eggplant. After they had cooled some I pulled off the skin, cut them in half and tossed them with ample kosher salt, and then let them drain off excess liquid in a metal colander. When all was said and done, I mushed them (seeds and all) together into a large bowl and then added a few cloves of garlic finely diced, a few large splashes of olive oil, some squeezes of a lemon, some more salt and some freshly ground pepper. The result was really yummy. The flame roasting of the eggplant really did give it a nice smokey flavor. The two eggplants made enough dip to fill a medium sized pickle jar (not the large one, but one maybe 6 inches high and 4 inches in diameter. Oh, and just to be safe and not give anyone botulism, I even blanched the garlic for 30 seconds in boiling water (and the iced it). I've seen that if you put raw garlic in an oily environment, it is possible to develop botulism (which can kill).

My canada trips

After an extended hiatus of traveling, I am back (for a week before more traveling). I would have written something while traveling, except my entries would have read something like this: Today (and the past three days) I had a wonderful dinner of smoked and spiced Mackerel eaten on slightly stale french bread with a bowl of fresh spinach, a handful of baby carrots, and an ample serving of BBQ potato chips for that extra little umphf.

Well, at least that would have been my entry from my last week in Montreal. I was attending a week long math conference at CRM at University of Montreal. It was a very nice conference. I generally enjoyed Montreal, but I do have one major bone to pick with the city. The day after the conference ended, I had a chance to explore the city. I brought with me some fixins for a sandwich, and figured I would make a purchase of a baguette in the city (I was staying on the other side of the eponymous mountain). I assumed, since there were two nice bakeries near my apartment, that there would be a similar or great number of bakeries in the city. Yet, in three hours of wandering the streets of the city, I came upon ZERO. Dejected I resorted to eating the sandwich fillings without any bread. Later in the day I did make my way to an outer region of the city where I knew there were bakeries, and I made a bread purchase --- but come'on??? And they call themselves a french speaking regions??

My first summer trip to Canada was about three weeks ago and was to Toronto (via North Carolina). There I stayed with my mom's cousin and his family --- which was awesome. It has been many years since I have had my lunch packed for me, but my mom's cousin's wife was super nice and packed me a lunch every day to take into the University of Toronto (where I was working on some math). Each day I was surprised by a new goody -- a chocolate granola bar, a jello and various other yummy things I haven't had in a long time. And if the lunch's were not enough, every day when I got back to their house, she had an awesome meat dinner ready. I definitely eat better there than I have in years.

Anyhoo... I'm back now. I'm planning on making a bunch of blintzs this weekend for Shavuot and will certainly post on that. Next weekend I'm going to LA for a wedding with food which promises to be very yummy.

Tangy Dal

The past few weeks / months I've been working pretty hard to study for two oral exams for my Ph.D. program in Math, which will be held tomorrow. As such (and due to passover) I've been pretty lax about posting and cooking. However, I did manage to make a nice dal a few days ago which I figure I will share (I think I'm done with studying and now I get to relax). I call this a tangy dal since the key flavors enhancing the dal are ginger, tomato paste and a little apple cider vinegar (plus some brown sugar). I decided to try to make something tangy since I remember my old roommate's girlfriend telling me that in Bangladesh cuisine, curries and dals are often tangy, and this sounded interesting to me.
The dal I chose to use was Mong Dal. Its a very small whole lentil which results in a pretty thick consistency when fully cooked. I soaked a cup or so of these over-night. The next day I heated some oil in a pot and added a few bay leaves, and some finely diced dried hot pepper (often people use this whole, but I decided to experiment with dicing it this time), plus half a stick of cinnamon and a few cloves. After about a minute and once the bay leaves began to brown (not burn) I added in some mustard seeds and some cumin seeds and gave them about a minute also. When the mustard seeds started to pop (and when I managed to finish dicing a large onion and some garlic) in when the onion and garlic. Mostly out of forgetfulness, but did not add any ginger at this point. However, in retrospect, my later method in including the ginger worked well, so I might just go with that again in the future.

Once the onions got translucent I cleared a spot on the bottom of the pot and add a little more oil and then the drained dal. The idea was to roast them a little (but it didn't see to work since they were pretty water-logged). I'm not really sure how much water I ended up using, but I would need to guess over two cups. The key was to make sure that the lentils didn't burn on the bottom. After cooking for about an hour and a half, the dal separated and became a thick sauce.

It was also at about this point when I remembered that I should have used some ginger. The difference between a bad dal and a good dal comes in the last minute of cooking. There is only so much flavor which can be imparted to a dal which cooks for about two hours. Solid spices work --- powder spices lose their flavor over the long cooking time. The way to spice dal is, in the end, to add an oil and tomato based spice sauce to the dal. I had run out of onion, or else I would have used some in this, but what I ended up doing is dicing some garlic, and ginger. Then I heated up about two tablespoons of oil, and added some garam masala powder plus a little curry powder to the oil and after a few second of sizzling I added the ginger and garlic. I gave it just enough time for the garlic to begin to brown, before I added in a little over half a can of tomato paste, and mixed this together thoroughly. This mixture then went into my dal and got mixed until well distributed. The final touch was a little brown sugar and a few dashes of apple cider vinegar. The spice level was a little high, so I added a few spoonfuls of yogurt directly into the pot and mixed it up.

This dal keeps for a long time, and can be microwaved in two minutes for a great meal. I had bought a loaf of rye bread from the Jewish bakery nearby, so I used toasted slices of the bread to dip into the dal (though more traditional Indian breads probably work well too).

I think that the tangyness worked well with this type of lentil, though I'm not sure why.

Good points to remember with dal is that a little acid after cooking works well. People often squeeze some lemon into the dal -- I didn't have lemon so I used some vinegar (just a little). Also remember to only use solid spices during the cooking, and afterwards to include the powder spices in the form of a tomato/oil mixture. Also make sure the lentils are fully broken down before adding this mix.

Master Chef NYU Premiere, April 13th, 6pm

Here is the advertisement for the Master Chef NYU Premiere:

The Master Chef Premiere and Smart Cooking Expo is on Monday, April 13 in the Palladium Multi-purpose room from 6-8pm.
You can:
* Taste the Winning Team's 3-course dinner
* Meet with the SHC Dietitian and the Peer Health Awareness Team peer educators to have your healthful eating questions answered
* Enjoy a refreshing fruit Smoothie
* Watch the competition unfold and see who wins during the screening of Master Chef 2009 an NYU-TV production.

I will be there (not eating anything due to passover). Let me know if you want to come and I can make sure we all find our way there together. I imagine that I'll be second most featured in the video they make, plus you'll get to see me receive my prize.

Big pot of food

Every once in a while I make a large quantity of food, enjoy it for a few days, and then get sick of eating it. I am not one to waste, so I instead improvise and create a big pot of food, including this previously made dish, with a variety of other food stuff, so as to change the flavor enough so I can resume enjoying the content. A little while back I made a very nice black beans dish which, after realizing that eating any non-trivial amount caused excess expulsion of gas, I abandoned eating. On Wednesday I resolved to turn this fart food into something I could eat safely (by amply diluting the beans with other material). Thus was born my most recent big pot of food.

Most people, I imagine, have the experience of food accruing in the fridge, without any clear destination. In addition to my black beans, I had some odds and ends of vegetables, an old cheese rind, and two Yuenging Light beers (I mistakenly bought these rather than regular ones and immediately regretted it). The key rule in this game is to cook stuff for a while and too be careful about overloading with flavors. When I started out I was unsure whether I was making a soup or what. After chopping the veggies and adding the beer, plus a little cider and cider vinegar, I determined that make this a full meal in its self. So I added some pearl barley and threw in the cheese rind.

A thought crossed my mind, somewhere after the cheese rind began to cook into the mixture -- if I made a soup, how would I be able to bring it to my office? I have never invested in a soup carrying device, so this would be utterly impossible. What happened next, I can not alone take credit for --- I am but acting as any one would who stands on the shoulders of food giants. I decided that to both thicken up the mixture and to improve the nutrients, I would add an ample amount of oatmeal and cook it until the oatmeal was totally broken down. The result was thick enough to be stored and brought to NYU. The oatmeal made for a really nice thick sauce which carried the flavors quiet well.

I will need to keep this in mind as a good way to thicken a soup (just be sure to cook it enough that it fully breaks apart).

Quinoa kosher for passover

I learned this nice fact yesterday. Evidently since the grain was not known in the olden times, it is not prohibited. This might make things a little easier this year. Last year I used my passover crockpot for chicken soup for 6 days straight. This year, probably the same, but maybe I'll add some quinoa to make things a little more healthy. I've actually never cooked with the grain before, so it will be a nice learning experience.